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Cheesecakes Contributing Less to In-store Bakeries

Cheesecakes lost ground in in-store bakeries during the past year as consumers turned to more healthful or affordable alternatives for indulgence. While individual desserts increased more than 7%, cheesecakes decreased in dollar sales compared to a year ago. Nationally, cheesecake sales accounted for 6.5% of total cake sales and 1.8% of bakery department dollar sales during the 52 weeks ending May

Cheesecakes lost ground in in-store bakeries during the past year as consumers turned to more healthful or affordable alternatives for indulgence. While individual desserts increased more than 7%, cheesecakes decreased in dollar sales compared to a year ago.

Nationally, cheesecake sales accounted for 6.5% of total cake sales and 1.8% of bakery department dollar sales during the 52 weeks ending May 29, 2010, which was consistent with the previous year.

Cheesecakes decreased 2% in dollar sales, while the bakery department grew 1.3% in year-over-year sales. Cheesecake averaged $177 per store per week, down from $181 last year.

Sales peaked during the weeks of Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year's, as cheesecake is a popular holdiay dessert. The category saw the greatest sales the week of Christmas, at $417 per store.

Cheesecakes declined in year-over-year sales in all regions, except the South. The South region saw a 1.4% increase in cheesecake dollar sales, which may have been driven by a small increase in distribution.

All regions were consistent in cheesecake contribution to the bakery department. The West region saw the greatest decrease in contribution with a decline of 0.2%.

Although the East region experienced the greatest dollar sales, with an average of $222 per store per week, the contribution to total bakery was the lowest among the four regions at 1.6%.

The West and South regions outpaced the 1.8% national average contribution to the bakery department with 2.2% and 2% contributions, respectively.

Nationally, assorted/variety cheesecakes led sales in the subcategory with 42.4% dollar share.

Plain cheesecake posted the next largest contribution to total cheesecakes with 23.3% of dollar share, followed by other cheesecake at 14.3%, strawberry cheesecakes at 12.1% and other fruit cheesecake at 7.9% of dollar share.

Assorted/variety cheesecake was up 4.7% over the previous year's category share. Strawberry cheesecake also improved its share by 3.8%. Plain cheesecake was nearly flat, losing 1.3% share, but other fruit cheesecakes and other cheesecakes each lost nearly 20% share.

This sales review was provided by the Perishables Group FreshFacts powered by Nielsen, and originally ran in Modern Baking, a sister publication of Supermarket News.

It includes supermarket in-store bakery scanner data results from the 52 weeks ending May 29, 2010, representing more than 63.3% of the national supermarket ACV share. For more information, contact the Perishables Group's Kelli Beckel by phone at (773) 929-7013, or e-mail [email protected].